


All The Time In The World

by Darkest_Sun



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: 5+1 Things, F/M, Falling In Love, Found Family, POV Multiple, Slow Burn, Spoilers for Episode: e060-066 The Stolen Century Parts 1-7, and so many character studies which was unintentional, do i tag all the platonic relationships in this?, i had a lot of fun getting into everyone's head, it's literally set in the stolen century so all the spoilers, less than canon level tbh, some violence, they're a goddamn family they all love and support each other, this bad boy can fit so many personal headcanons in it, well slow in real time this fic is not that long, whee a chapter from everyone's pov!
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-07-25
Updated: 2019-08-18
Packaged: 2020-07-10 20:51:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 10,474
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19912027
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Darkest_Sun/pseuds/Darkest_Sun
Summary: 5 + 1 things fic, centred around 5 times Barry and Lup did not notice that they were so fucking in love with each other (and one time they did, and good thing too because Taako was about to kill them) featuring the whole Starblaster crew because I love them.





	1. Davenport

**Author's Note:**

  * For [feelsallovertheplace](https://archiveofourown.org/users/feelsallovertheplace/gifts).



> This whole fic is, of course, a love letter to Barry and Lup. The characters that lit me up with their love and their goodness. In truth, this should have been my second fic; conceived and half written a few months ago while I was still trying to find the courage to publish my first fic.
> 
> But I found that, along the way, each chapter had turned into a love letter to whichever character's perspective I was borrowing as well. To how they all loved each other, and held themselves and their family together through this century.

Captain Davenport can’t help but notice the little details about his crew. It’s his job to keep an eye on them, after all. 

It’s been over three decades, and he can’t imagine not being like a family with these people - but he feels sometimes that his position as Captain means that they keep certain things from him. Often, he appreciates that chance at plausible deniability and the option to not get involved in whatever poorly conceived idea they’ve cooked up. Even more often, he ends up regretting this when the consequences of their latest scheme suddenly becomes His Problem. Usually in the middle of the night, and sometimes with a _bang_. 

So he understands that his (somewhat self-assigned) role as the supposed ‘parental supervision’ of his crew can create some distance. Though judging by the casual way they all refer to him as Dad’n’port, they don’t mind too much. 

And after all, he can’t begrudge them not wanting to be responsible all the time. Half of them were practically children before they all stopped aging, and the Gods know they’ve already had to be more responsible than anyone ever should.

These are all things Davenport has thought about many times before, sometimes at disrespectful hours of the night when he is woken by the twins’ latest kitchen shenanigans threatening the safety of the entire ship, or Merle’s plants rioting because he got himself seriously magically injured. 

He smiles to himself as these thoughts run through his mind during his early morning meditation. Early, because it’s the only time he is (usually) guaranteed peace on this ship. And meditation because he likes to take stock of his thoughts, find some order and sense among the chaos.

For all the chaos and disrupted sleep, Davenport still couldn’t wish to change anything about his little family. He loves them for their flaws and has even more respect for their talents than the day he chose them for this mission.

And, whatever the distance created by his role as Captain, he is always confident that his crew knows he loves them. He’s never tried to parent the twins too much; aside from the fact that they are technically older than him, he’s read their (sparse) personal files and decided they wouldn’t appreciate anyone trying to fill a space they’ve tried so hard to close over.

So Davenport knows he walks a line sometimes between crew member and Captain, between a friend and someone who can be relied on to be responsible. But right now, he feels like he should let certain members of his crew know that the line between Captain and friend is never solid, and even the rules laid down most loudly and firmly by the IPRE are made blurry by their… unique circumstances. 

Davenport has been thinking about these things over the past few weeks, as he interacts with his unusual family, often cataloguing their behaviours and little quirks to make sure they are as alright as they can be. And overall, they cope far better than he suspects many people would in this situation. They have all shown a remarkable ability to adapt, and to work together. Big disagreements are often mediated by the rest of the team, or else forgotten about in the next emergency - and Davenport is grateful that he rarely finds it necessary to step in.

Somewhat ironically, he finds himself deciding to step in right now for almost the exact opposite reason. Two of the Starblaster’s crew had been getting along _especially_ well of late, and he finds them standing in the kitchen cheerfully bickering about whether experiments into coffee, magic, and caffeine potency were a good use of their time and resources. 

Davenport couldn’t actually tell what side of the discussion either Barry or Lup were on; as usual they both seemed to be making arguments for both sides interchangeably and with good humour, and appeared to be unhindered by this confusion. 

He decided to stop this discussion in its tracks when it started to veer towards testing these caffeine experiments on Taako. The science department on this ship were uncomfortably eager to team up and conduct experiments on each other. Experiments that, in Davenport’s opinion, looked suspiciously like goofing around that’s been written down by people with PhDs (and thus who should know better). Especially urgent in Davenport’s mind was how much he absolutely Did Not Want to deal with a magically hyper-caffeinated Taako, not when there was no chance of retirement, or even long service leave, in his near future.

Davenport made his entrance using the time honoured method of clearing his throat and walking on in. 

He did have to suppress a grin when Lup and Barry immediately sprang apart from where they had been nearly bumping heads over the coffee machine, which Davenport was pleased to note looked un-tampered with (but he’d be keeping a close eye on it, he _needed_ that machine). 

They both looked a little wild-eyed and clearly startled to see anyone else in the kitchen. If Davenport knew his crew (and he absolutely did) he’d bet that they were not up early, like him, so much as up very late. Which was probably what had led to this alarming discussion about the potential benefits of magical caffeine.

Davenport raised an eyebrow at them, and they stepped out of the way to let him pour some coffee into his slightly lumpy ‘World’s Okayest Dad(n’port)’ mug that had been gifted to him by the twins one Candlenights on a very clay-rich planet a couple of cycles ago - apparently on the basis of ‘having stuck around longer than any of our actual family, not that you have a choice, really.’

Lup grinned like she always did when she saw the mug, and came to herself a bit to sing-song, “Morning Dad’n’port!”

Davenport smiled, “Good morning Lup, Barry. How goes The Science?”

Lup laughed delightedly at the Magnus mannerism they’d all started to pick up, and Barry lit up like he always did when talking about his research. Though Davenport found himself looking to Lup’s overtired but still lively face, illuminated by the early morning sun, and wondering if research was the only reason.

“The Science is great!” Barry enthused while he grabbed out the milk for Davenport’s coffee. “Lup has been on fire lately-”

She snorted and poked Barry in the arm, making him grin wider.

“But she has! It was her idea to negate the excess magical energy generated by the Light using a process similar to spell-shaping that she developed. I could have been stuck for months on how to make the interactions stable enough to start testing for magical compatibility without blowing up half the lab!”

“Again.” Added Davenport and Lup simultaneously.

Barry blushed and handed Davenport the milk he had forgotten to let go of, which he had been using to gesture wildly while he spoke. 

Lup smirked at Barry, poking him in the arm again. “You should be glad it was _my_ experiments you turned into expensive rubble and not Taako’s. I’m sure he would have guilted you into doing a lot worse than just feeding my cat while I was away collecting parts for the new lab.” Lup grinned wickedly in a way that made Davenport want to grab the nearest fire extinguisher, then continued, “he might have made you wear only non-denim pants for as long as it took to rebuild all his experiments!”

Barry gasped, “Dad’n’port would never allow me to be subjected to that kind of treatment! That’s got to be against the IPRE regulations about cruel and unusual punishment or something.” 

Barry looked pleadingly at Davenport, who shrugged.

“And also," Barry continued, "Baroness Angry-Paws wasn’t actually a cat. You can tell by the way that she was _in no way domesticated_. I only don’t have the scars to prove my point because we reset at the start of every cycle!” 

“Aw you big sook, you just gotta get better at dodging the talons! Get good, Barry!”

Yes, Davenport felt pretty confident that Lup and Barry were getting along better than ever, they were effortlessly comfortable with each other in a way that was unusual, but nice, to see in Barry. He was a teammate and brother to the rest of the crew, but could rarely be described as ‘comfortable’. He still tended to overthink most social interactions that weren’t about magical theory or his current experiments.

Lup, on the other hand, could appear comfortable anywhere; but Davenport was pretty sure he knew her well enough to spot the real thing by now. And currently - here in this kitchen, at too-damn-early o’clock with Barry - she looked as comfortable and genuine as he’d ever seen her. It was enough to make a Captain proud.

And while it wasn’t really any of his business (except for the fact that it was, because they’re his family), and that he probably could ignore this and let them be on their way (except that the things he ignored tended to give him headaches later), he wanted them to know that this wasn’t one of those things that blurred the Captain-or-friend boundary in any way.

Davenport cleared his throat again to get their attention away from each other, which took a moment, he noted.

“Cruel and unusual punishment though that may be, you did blow up half a lab, and this ship is IPRE property.” Davenport kept his face straight for a few more moments, just to see how long Barry would pretend to look apologetic about one of the _many_ lab incidents he’d been party to over the years.

He let himself grin, “but the IPRE is a long way from being able to tell us what to do anymore, I may be your Captain but certainly none of us are beholden to rules written decades ago on another plane.” Now he was worried this had become a dark reminder of all they had lost. 

He fixed Lup with a Look. “Not that _some_ of us have ever considered ourselves beholden to the rules,” he smiled to make sure she knew he was kidding. “The rules for appropriate relations between people who work together, for example... definitely none of us are particularly concerned about those.” That seemed like a subtle enough way to work this into the conversation.

“Are you saying you’re glad you don’t have to submit the paperwork on me making Barry feed a potentially dangerous native animal I was keeping in my personal quarters? Because I can see that, but I also wish I could see the faces of some of the stuffy board members if you _did_ have to submit paperwork on some of the stuff we’ve done. Even just the legal stuff!” Lup looked delighted at the concept of scandalising the IPRE higher-ups, and Davenport took a moment to be grateful that he didn’t count too much as an authority figure in Lup’s mind anymore.

“While I am extremely glad I don’t have to submit form K27N, subsection 3b, every time-”

“You made that up!” Lup squawked indignantly.

“-Every time one of you _Made Unreasonable but Non-Sexual Requests of a Coworker that Exceed the Requirements of the Workplace,_ that’s not quite what I’m talking about,” Davenport deadpanned.

Lup was looking suspiciously at him, and Barry seemed like he didn’t know whether to laugh or blush and so was doing both very self-consciously.

Davenport forged ahead. “None of the people on this ship have, shall we say, traditional professional relationships with each other. The codebooks that prohibited close, personal connections between IPRE coworkers no longer exist, and even if they were still around somewhere, this situation is so out of the norm that it wouldn’t matter anyway.”

He took a drink of coffee and tried to think of the best way to put this that wouldn’t make this too awkward. This wasn’t a birds and the bees talk, after all.

“What I’m saying is, I know I’m your Captain and you all listen to me, and that responsibility naturally creates some distance, some boundaries that need to be respected. But you don’t have to feel like I’ll disapprove of your relationship - as I said, there’s no IPRE for me to submit overly complex paperwork to anymore. And I wouldn’t even if I could, I want you all to be happy. We’re a family, after all.”

Davenport thought that had gone fairly well, he had covered the important bases, let them know there was no need to hide it from him. Although he did understand if they wanted some privacy from the others, for however long they could get it (not long, he was betting). 

Barry and Lup, however, were looking at him with confused expressions.

Davenport was just thinking that he might have made a tactical error in having this talk while they were clearly under-rested and over-caffeinated, when Barry’s confusion cleared up right before his eyes. Barry looked at Lup, saw that she was still confused, and drew breath to speak - then let it out again while he visibly searched for the words he wanted.

Davenport hadn’t been expecting Barry to be the one to respond. If he’d been expecting anything, it was for Lup to laugh, Barry to blush, and them to ask him not to tell Taako yet. That exact scenario had happened before, when he’d caught them using something smelly and unidentifiable to water the plant that lived on Taako’s desk, the one given to him by Merle after he killed the last five.

But Barry, with some strange mix of insight and obliviousness, had managed to see… not what Davenport was intending to get across, that would be too simple, but had instead seen what he was _not_ intending to get across.

“Hey, Dad’n’port, you uh, you said it yourself, we’re a family now. That includes you, you know.” Barry said very earnestly. 

Now Davenport was lost. And he had thought this was going so well.

“We don’t listen to you because you’re our Captain, you’re our Captain because we listen to you!” Barry looked confused at his own words. “No, that’s- wait. We listen because we respect you, and we trust each other to keep all of us safe, and to be a family. We aren’t holding you at a distance because you’re our Captain.”

Davenport could hear the unspoken conclusion: we aren’t holding you at a distance, you are.

Lup had managed to board the train Barry thought they were on, and added, “Come on, we always knew you weren’t some IPRE yes-man! I can’t even imagine who you had to convince to hire a bunch of weirdos like us for a crazy space mission, but you did, and where are we now? Some fucking world covered in lame rocks. But! We have each other. And yeah seriously, we deffo don’t listen to you just because the IPRE said so, or because you wear the uniform correctly like some major nerd. Sorry, that’d be Captain Nerd,” she winked at him.

And he realised they were right. Certainly none of them had given any indication that they’d respect some idiot in charge just because they had a fancy title - they very much had not done so during their time at the IPRE. His crew didn’t even call him Captain, they called him Dad’n’port. He was their Captain because he placed that responsibility on himself, and he was their family because they placed that trust in him.

None of that meant he was any less one of them. None of it meant there was any real distance at all.

Davenport decided to take his lukewarm coffee and retreat to his room. He had a lot to think about.


	2. Magnus

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, as you can see, each chapter will be from a different character's perspective, which mean there will be a variety of tones and styles to this fic - which makes it more fun to write!
> 
> Warning for some violence in this one, probably even less that canon-level descriptions tbh.

Magnus was rattled.

About two hours ago, when he had stepped off the Starblaster, he suddenly realised that he was not the hugest fan of being unable to trust the very ground beneath his feet.

He was possibly even the opposite, an un–fan, perhaps.

Ordinarily, a planet this barren and seemingly devoid of any hiding places would have Magnus feeling less paranoid, not more. But this planet was hardly what it seemed.

He’d only volunteered to come on this expedition with Lup and Barry because six weeks was a long time to be cooped up in a small spaceship with six other people; no matter how much he loved those other people.

And maybe, possibly, also because whatever bad time he was having walking along the untrustworthy dirt right now – he would be having a hell of a lot less fun back on the ship imagining all the terrible things that could happen to Lup and Barry without him there to protect them.

Davenport had made a bit of a face at sending Lup and Magnus out together after the mission in cycle 36. He clearly didn’t trust Barry’s calming influence to keep Magnus and Lup’s combined chaos in check.

Which, honestly, fair. Their unassuming scientist only radiated ‘calming’ vibes when he was up to something and trying to seem non-threatening. That had actually worked for an embarrassingly long time; Magnus suspected the others were all equally ashamed that it had taken them until the third cycle to figure out that the ‘electrical fault’ causing the coffee machine to ‘randomly’ shock people never zapped Barry.

Taako, of course, insisted he knew all along.

But Magnus wasn’t in the mood for mischief as he followed behind Lup and Barry as they chatted casually about what they hoped to find here. And Magnus knew that he was about to enjoy this unenjoyable experience a whole lot less now he could see their destination getting closer.

It was hard to miss, and easy to see why Barry and Lup were so interested. On this wasteland of a planet, it had taken them a whole month of searching for the light to find even the barest hints of a past civilisation.

Most of the planet was dirt and rocks, with some worryingly huge fissures thrown in just to shake things up a little. So they’d assumed it was an uninhabited planet, which was fine, that happened. Lonely, kinda boring, but fine.

Then they’d found a few barely there ruins, and some tools. Clearly very old, and Magnus knew these were ruins but… everything looked, well, _extra_ ruined.

Checking those places out was what started it.

Stuff started to go wrong on scouting missions. Pretty soon after, stuff started to go _missing_. And finally, Taako screamed bloody murder in the middle of the night that he had seen something – possibly even some _one_.

And so, better late than never, they worked out that the planet was maybe _not_ so uninhabited.

It hadn’t taken Barry and Taako long to come up with a likely answer: the creatures of this planet had moved _underground_ a long time ago, probably escaping whatever war or disaster had wrecked the place. This made a lot of sense to Magnus – it certainly explained why no one had found any evidence of life or seen any people until nearly a month into their stay.

Didn’t make it very easy to sleep, though.

After working out the Underground Society thing, Taako had declared that he was ‘good up here’ and refused to leave the ship for the rest of the year; so they’d all agreed to keep looking for the light from the safety of the air.

Cue six weeks of Magnus trying not to go stir crazy, and getting first degree burns when he started up the jumpscares and startled Lucretia into throwing her coffee on him.

So he understood how he had ended up here, about to reach the largest and most intact set of ruins they’d seen so far, with Lup and Barry up ahead chatting animatedly about all the awful ways this planet’s creatures could have fucked up so badly that they levelled their own world and had to move underground.

Magnus had tried to get more information about the creatures from Taako, who had refused to elaborate beyond _fucking creepy, my dude, what do you want me to say?_

The back of his head had felt itchy and _watched_ all day. And now they were walking into a nice, fairly intact set of ruins. With nice, fairly intact walls and piles of rubble to stage an ambush. 

And they still didn’t know what these creatures could do. Oh sure they didn’t _know_ that they were hostile, as Merle insisted, but whatever-they-were certainly hadn’t stuck around to chat after sneaking around their camp in the middle of the night. Magnus has been the source of enough suspicious behaviour to know it when he saw it.

Maybe it would have helped if Magnus could say why the idea of unknown underground assailants was getting to him so bad, or maybe if he’d seen something concrete rather than just a bad feeling.

But he didn’t, so he kept quiet as they searched the ruins of what must have been a pretty expansive city. His companions clearly didn’t share his unease; and he tried to stop whipping his head around every time a shadow moved or there was a wall tall enough to hide behind. Lup was starting to throw him concerned looks. And his neck was starting to hurt.

By sundown, his nerves were thoroughly shot.

Barry and Lup found lots of interesting things that he’d struggled to pay attention to, too busy darting glances at broken buildings and rocks that looked like heads. They hadn’t found out why all the people had fled underground, though, or how they had managed to level basically the whole planet.

There was plenty more city to search, which meant they were staying. Great.

“Magnus.” 

Lup looked up at him from where they were lighting a fire in the middle of clear-ish section of the ruined city.

“I can see you’re a little on edge there, Mags, and honestly my neck hurts just from watching you turn yours all day like a creepy carnival clown head. So… you wanna talk about it?”

He should have known this was a trap. Why would Lup ask for help lighting a fire?

“I guess…” Magnus sighed, “I guess, I don’t know, this whole thing is bothering me a bit. It’s just– they’re coming _from the ground._ They could be _anywhere_ and I wouldn’t see them ‘til they’ve already stabbed through my foot! I need that to stand on!”

Lup looked like she was biting back a grin, which wasn’t very supportive of her.

She went back to building up the fire, “Look I get it, Mags. We know pretty much nothing about these creatures or this planet and that bothers me too. But they’ve never attacked us outright, and they disappeared real quick when Taako actually spotted one.”

“I’d disappear real quick if Taako shrieked in my face that loud,” Magnus muttered.

Lup huffed a laugh. “I hate to say you’ve given yourself a sore neck over nothing, but…” She sat back from the nicely burning fire she definitely hadn’t needed his help with and smiled at him, “We’ll keep a watch now we know there’s other people on this big dumb rock. I’m sure we’ll be fine.”

Barry had been politely ignoring their conversation from over where he was setting up the bedrolls, but he looked over with a mock-annoyed expression, “Oh great, Lup, now you’ve gone and jinxed it!”

“I’ll jinx your bedroll if you don’t watch it!”

Magnus laughed, “Children, please, don’t make me turn this–”

Something rustled in the shadows and Magnus was on his feet with his axe out before he could register how much he’d relaxed in the seconds beforehand.

Nothing moved.

The seconds ticked over and he looked down at Lup bashfully, feeling about as paranoid as she’d made him sound earlier.

Whatever she’d been about to say turned suddenly to a yell as she sent fire streaming into the shadows to Magnus’ right, over near where Barry still was. In the light left by her fire, the two humans could now see what only Lup’s eyes had been able to.

They’d found this planet’s inhabitants.

Or, rather, they’d been found. By slightly furry, halfling-sized creatures who seemed to melt into the darkness. And whose many weapons glinted in the fire light.

Magnus’ arms engaged before his brain, as often happened, and he found himself spinning and hacking behind him almost without meaning to as more creatures poured out from behind those half-ruined walls that he’d spent all day watching.

He turned quickly around, both to keep from being flanked and to look for Barry back where he’d been standing.

The creature who’d thought to get around behind him regretted it, only for a brief flash, and Magnus looked over his shoulder to see Barry doing just fine for himself in front of a swarming crowd of angry aliens.

Or were they the aliens? Not important right now.

When Magnus looked the other way, Lup was also more than holding her own on the other side of the fire. He wasn’t surprised – he knew his friends were powerful – but he had to check for himself. 

He lost himself in the fight a little bit. There were an endless number of them, pouring from wherever the fucking ground opened up that they’d somehow missed during the day.

There were so many that Magnus didn’t even have time to enjoy being right about the paranoia.

The battle broke into separate sensations that were all Magnus’ brain could process for a time; 

the light of his axe reflecting the fire as it slashed through the darkening night air, 

the familiar awful smells of smoke and blood saturating the scene, 

the slow bite of his weapon into things living and angry, 

and all undercut by the reassuring sounds of Lup and Barry’s magic whooshing and exploding around him.

His axe eventually met something surprisingly solid and stuck a little, giving the creature time to get in a light stab while Magnus pulled his blade free of the crude shield.

He barely noticed the sting on his thigh, focusing on slashing forcefully downwards through the resistance of the creature’s strange body, turning to scan his surroundings as soon as it dropped. 

On the other side of the fire, one of them was trying to get around behind Lup to flank her. It locked its strange eyes with his through the flames and Magnus tried for a moment to make out any kind of expression in its strange face.

But if these creatures were capable of communicating via facial expressions, they sure weren’t trying right now. It turned back to Lup and the moment passed.

Magnus kicked a flaming log from the fire pit straight at it, making it screech as it connected and immediately lit whatever the hell it was wearing. Not very fireproof, apparently.

Lup noticed and finished it off by carving a circle of fire around herself as she spun, burning it along with several others trying to crowd her. She met Magnus’ eyes and let out a delighted cry, eyes sparkling with the flames she’d called to her aid.

He grinned back at her before stepping out of the way of a rock he’d easily seen coming, and in a half–dozen steps he was upon the slingshot-wielding creature.

It took barely two superficial hits before Magnus’ axe bit too deep into its side to come back from. His dash across the battlefield had taken him partially behind the cover of a wall, and he realised he couldn’t see his friends.

Magnus hurried back to the main fight, anxious to have eyes on his – admittedly powerful – companions again.

When he stepped back into the clear area that had been their peaceful camp for the night, everything looked the same for a half–second. Then his eyes caught movement, and he registered the huge mounted crossbow a good 90 feet away.

The massive bolt was glinting in the firelight as several creatures maneuvered to point it directly at the one tall figure in a ring of the smaller creatures.

Magnus was moving before he could even begin calculating the distance between himself and Barry, whose back was still facing the danger, but his tactical brain was making an ugly noise in the back of his head.

He hadn’t made it even half the distance to Barry, especially because he was shoving enemies out of his way with his weapon and fists as he literally cut a path, when the very loud twang met his ears.

Magnus thought he must be screaming without noticing, some kind of wordless primal rage filling his ears from out of nowhere.

He was not.

A fierce and fiery figure burned a streak across Magnus’ vision and across the battlefield.

While he had been focused entirely on Barry’s unprotected figure, Lup had come screaming into the line of the giant bolt flying towards them.

Magnus didn’t even have time to feel relief that Barry would be safe. Rather than pushing them both out of the way like Magnus had been planning, Lup had put herself between Barry and the harpoon–sized projectile.

He was still barrelling towards them, only able to watch as his nightmares were given shape in front of him. Still running even as he was far too slow to protect either of them. 

The air in front of Lup exploded.

Between the enormous ball of fire and the massive splinters of wood that embedded themselves in the creatures around him as well as his left arm and leg; Magnus thought he saw flames being expertly shaped himself around the figures still standing… 

But that might have been wishful thinking on his part in the nanoseconds he had before everything in the area was hit with a wave of heat and force and Magnus stopped thinking anything at all.

Ringing.

Still ringing.

Was someone going to answer that?

Oh, right.

Magnus opened his eyes to see stars moving around his head.

He might have been more worried, except they quickly came into focus and stilled. Just the regular night sky, okay.

Sitting up perhaps too quickly, he figured it had only been a few seconds at most since he was knocked down and out – clearly hitting his head by the feel of it.

Ouch, clearly hitting his whole body actually.

Everything that had not already been on fire was now definitely on fire. Things that had previously been on fire were now _extra_ on fire.

Magnus was halfway to where he’d last seen Lup and Barry before he noticed that his legs were very wobbly – and maybe immediately attempting to run was a miscalculation on his part.

He knew what a concussion was; he listened to Merle. Sometimes.

The ringing in his ears was clearing as he got closer and saw Lup and Barry, kneeling in the centre of the blast radius. They looked only a little singed.

Lup saw him as he came into view and half–sat, half–collapsed a few feet from them.

She winced when she noticed the rather large splinter in his arm, more arrow-sized than splinter-sized really, and the smaller one in his leg.

“Yeah maybe you should just… lie down a bit there Mags,” she croaked out, sounding apologetic, “unless Davenport’s asleep at the wheel I, uh, reckon they saw that.”

“I’ll do that,” he said, already doing that.

He dizzily noted on his way down that while Barry had turned to check on Magnus too, he hadn’t lost his death grip on Lup’s shoulder.

Magnus didn’t know what he looked like right now, but he was almost willing to bet that Barry looked worse. Apart from a few smudges of ash, he was whiter than the Light of Creation and his eyes were terrified.

Was he in shock? Should Magnus get him a blanket? That’s what you did for shock, right?

“Lup.” Barry’s voice was shaking.

She turned back to look at him, their knees touching as they knelt facing each other.

Actually, Lup didn’t look too great either, and now they were just staring at each other.

Two blankets needed?

“Lup… you…” Barry reached to take hold of her other shoulder, now gripping both of them and slumping like he’d fall without the support. “You can’t do that. You can’t DO that, Lup! You could have– you nearly–” he choked to a stop.

“Calm the fire there, Bar, I’d be back in like… ten months.” She sounded more brittle than Magnus had heard her sound in a while.

“That’s not– that’s still no reason to be careless with your life Lup! We’d still grieve! I would– I couldn’t– just don’t, please?”

Lup softened, and slumped the defensive set of her shoulders. “I know. I’m sorry Bar, I’m not trying to be reckless, I know it still sucks when one of us dies.”

Magnus didn’t want to think about that.

She looked like she was thinking about last cycle, one of the few that Taako managed to die in, that had left her seven months without her twin.

Barry probably realised the train of her thoughts too, because he loosened his death grip on her shoulders, though not moving his hands, and huffed dramatically. “And then who’s stuck in a small lab with a cranky Taako while you’re taking an extended nap? Me. And Taako’s _mean_ when he’s grumpy.” Barry tried to grin, “And his enchiladas aren’t as good as yours.”

Magnus thought that the attempt at humour was probably weakened a bit by the tremor in Barry’s voice as he spoke, but Lup didn’t call him out on it.

“But Bar, who would side with me when Taako’s trying to steal my desk space if you were gone?”

Barry’s already unconvincing smile faltered.

“I’m not trying to be reckless,” she repeated, “but I saw that bolt and I just had to do something about it. I couldn’t spend ten months hating myself for watching you die just because I knew you’d come back. It’s like, it wasn’t even a choice.”

Magnus wondered if maybe he needed a blanket, too.

He wondered if he looked that reckless to others when he ran in front of someone just because he couldn’t forgive himself if he didn’t try to protect his friends.

“Lup, you could have blasted that thing from where you were standing– you didn’t have to get right in front of it!” 

Magnus realised he could see tears in Barry’s eyes. Then realised he could see Barry’s eyes, which meant his glasses had probably gotten blasted off his face.

Some hysterical part of him wanted to laugh at the thought of Barry having this Very Serious Conversation when he could probably barely see Lup in front of him – maybe that was why he was still holding her shoulders? But the larger part of Magnus was trying not to think too deeply about this intense, and understandable, reaction to Lup nearly sacrificing herself for him. 

He’d known, of course, what it felt like from the other side when one of them died in a cycle but for obvious reasons had never witnessed the aftermath of when he–

Don’t connect those dots, Magnus.

Lup said something too quiet for him to hear.

“And hit me?” Barry sounded confused.

“No, I could have missed the _bolt_ and then you’d be dead.” Lup’s voice only nearly broke on the last word. “I couldn’t miss when it was headed right towards me, only one direction to point. And if I did manage to miss at that range, well, I’d probably deserve what came next.”

Magnus winced, that felt a bit too soon.

Barry looked like he agreed, his devastated face bright with tears shining in the firelight.

“And then what? Then I have to live with you _dying_ for me? With Taako not looking at me for a year – not that I’d be able to look at him either, you know.”

“I… I didn’t…”

And Magnus could have finished the thought for her, if he felt like it. (He did not).

_I didn’t think about it like that._

_I didn’t think about how it would feel to have me die for you._

He wanted to insist to himself that it was different – that it’s his job to protect his family, not the other way around.

It was hard to insist anything in the face of Barry and Lup kneeling and clutching each other, their bodies forming an arched silhouette through which he could see the scorched ruins, everything still burning.

He knew who he wanted to be right, but he didn’t know that either of them truly were. He could see them, still lost in the horror and denial of the futures they almost saw for each other.

Magnus had seen it: the unacceptable future where Barry died and Magnus didn’t save him. Lup had seen it too.

What Magnus hadn’t seen: the equally unacceptable future where Lup died for Barry and he had to live with it. Lup hadn’t seen that one either.

How could they? Either it worked, and they both survived, or she was gone and didn’t have to see Barry’s devastation. 

But she could see it now.

Magnus realised everything was getting brighter, and turned his aching head to see the Starblaster’s lights as it lowered gently to the closest clear patch of the ruins, figures rushing out of it almost before it touched down.

“I’m sorry,” he heard Lup say gently.

And then the others were all there, and it was over.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Writing action is pretty far out of my comfort zone, yet I do it anyway. I also love Magnus with all my heart but we're very different, and getting into his head was harder than I was expecting, compared to the other chapters I've already written. 
> 
> Thanks for reading and I'd love to know what you thought!


	3. Merle

Merle was on his way to the lab section at a time it was usually empty of its occupants, but he was almost at the door and he could swear he was hearing talking.

“Please Lup, I need you to keep your hand there, I’m nearly done!”

Huh. That was definitely Barry’s voice.

“Well hurry up, Bar, my hand is cramping!”

And that was Lup. This should be interesting.

Merle turned the corner and saw Barry and Lup standing, tangled around each other in a mess of lab coats and limbs, at Barry’s desk. They both had all of their available hands on a strange looking machine thats middle part seemed to be spinning around – then again, all the equipment in here looked strange to Merle. 

This looked suspiciously like Science Stuff to Merle, and he hadn't gotten this far in life by messing with Lup and Barry’s strange machines.

He was on his way over to his original destination of Taako’s desk when Lup spotted him out from under the tangle of Barry’s arms.

She called out, “Merle! Yo, buddy, what are you even doing in here? It’s Taako’s turn to cook breakfast and his omelettes are killer. You know what? Doesn’t even matter. Bring those hands over here, we need ‘em.”

Merle, who had definitely been planning to finish this quickly and get back before all the coffee and fluffy eggy goodness was gone, kept walking to Taako’s desk.

“Not that you care, apparently, but I’m here to give Taako’s fern a little TLC.” 

He raised the watering can he was carrying as evidence, then turned to start watering and cooing at the sad plant on Taako’s desk.

Lup looked incredulous. 

Merle started stroking the leaves.

“Excuse me!” Lup burst out. “What the fuck? Could you please do the plant foreplay later?!”

Barry winced without looking away from the spinn-y machine and muttered, “could you please not, actually.”

Lup was attempting to glare at Merle from her half-hidden position within Barry’s arms and body, as he was completely leaning over her now to get a better look at The Science.

“Listen, we’ll completely forget the frankly unsettling plant behaviour – or we’ll try, that’s for sure – if you come over here and help me hold this thing together,” Lup coaxed. 

Merle paused in his important and completely average plant care routine to look very dubiously over at where Lup and Barry appeared to be imitating several pretzels in a lab coat and infused as much doubt into his voice as he could to reply, “uh, you know what, I’d actually rather not.”

Lup seemed to take stock of her situation for the first time, tangled with and pressed up against Barry in almost every imaginable way while he leaned over her and concentrated fiercely on whatever the machine was doing – whirring and beeping and what have you.

Then Merle saw something far stranger than whatever the hell he was already looking at; Lup was getting flustered. Oh sure, it was nothing as spectacular as Barry’s deep tomato blushes, but Lup was too dark to go as red as Barry anyway. Still, there was definitely heat in her cheeks that hadn’t been there five seconds ago, and Lup’s expression was unmistakably  _ flustered _ . Huh.

“Oh alright,” Merle grumbled, putting down the watering can and ambling over, sparing Lup the unfamiliar discomfort of finding herself speechless.

He looked skeptically at the Science Machine that was indeed whirring and beeping and what have you. “And just what am I supposed to be helping with?”

Barry finally tuned back into his surroundings and looked over Lup’s head at Merle standing on the other side of the machine. “Oh! Yeah, this’ll be good. Uh, see where Lup’s left hand is, could you sort of swap yours out there without letting the pressure off that panel there or it’ll come right off and that would, uh, that would be bad.”

Merle nodded at Barry, who was already looking back at whatever Fascinating Science Things were going on at the center of the machine. 

Merle put his hand firmly over Lup’s and motioned with his other for her to start slowly pulling her hand out from underneath while he applied pressure. This was almost reminding him of healer training.

Now that Lup had removed her left hand entirely and was flexing and stretching it out with a slightly pained look on her face, Merle could feel the full force of how the machine was rattling and thrumming like it was trying to escape Barry’s intense scrutiny. 

Merle couldn’t blame it really, he hadn’t seen Barry looking at something this intensely outside of the few other times he’d run into him in the lab while watering Taako’s unfortunate plants – Barry usually didn’t even notice him. He couldn’t imagine that kind of intensity directed at a person.

Then again… Merle looked at where Barry had taken one hand off the machine without looking away to help massage Lup’s obviously cramped hand. Huh.

The place Barry had previously been holding started to rattle ominously, and Merle quickly slapped his free hand over it. He did not want to know what would happen if this weird machine started to come apart; Barry’s succinct ‘that would be bad’ had convinced him. He still remembered the last time the lab blew up.

Barry had declared the experiment a success that time, despite the magical fire outbreak, but Merle would prefer if everyone’s definition of ‘success’ involved a little less of being woken up in the middle of the night by explosions and yelling and a nude Magnus holding a battleaxe.

The panel Merle was supposed to be holding started to rattle earnestly, and he quickly pressed his hand more firmly against the side of the machine. That oughta teach him to be distracted by musings about his crew mates. Maybe he really was getting old, like Taako liked to joke whenever he caught Merle asleep in the good armchair in the middle of the afternoon. Which was often.

Still, Merle knew it was all done out of love. Just like it was out of love that Merle would get Taako wound up most mornings by woefully misidentifying the herbs and spices in their breakfast and commenting loudly on how well the  _ bay leaves _ complimented the  _ cinnamon _ in today’s omelette, Taako!

They were all close – it was hard not to be after forty-odd years stuck together on a ship. Still, Merle was pretty sure he’d lucked out with his little family, they were good people. Incredible pains in the ass a solid 60% of the time but good people. His people.

And the casual touches were a thing that he stopped noticing barely a couple of cycles in, especially as a healer who had to lay on hands for a variety of (usually dumb) reasons. Magnus was better at knowing when someone was particularly in need of a hug; but the lot of them had spent many a night asleep in a pile in the main living area – especially on those cycles where several people died. 

Merle didn’t like to think about those. He especially didn’t like to think about how, more often than not since learning Parlay, he’s the one leaving the rest of them behind to mourn and find comfort by stealing all the pillows and sleeping in a big pile.

Luckily, Barry and Lup provide a distraction from his maudlin thoughts by being weird again.

“Hey Lup do you mind grabbing–”

“–the lens cover so you can refill the spectro-chamber, of course Bar. And do you need me to look into the–”

“–the excess burnoff compartment and tell me how much it’s producing yeah–”

“–looks about 30 mL of excess, hm, do you think we should–”

“–oh yeah for sure, let me grab the beaker. Shit, I swear I just had it, have you seen–?”

“Yeah it’s on the other side, wait a sec I’ll grab it if you open the spout – do you think about–”

“–about 50 mL yeah I don’t think it needs more than that. Perfect.”

Merle watched this whole exchange in bafflement, and no small amount of awe. They may all have been as close as family – closer, even – but that didn’t mean they could all read each other’s minds. 

Well, Taako and Lup pretty much could, but they claimed they had always been able to, and Merle didn’t know enough about twins to dispute it. 

Maybe it just came from working in a lab with someone for decades. You’d hope your experiment partner would know the right beakers and right amounts and all that shit by now, he supposed.

Barry and Lup were now wearing expressions of pure, unadulterated excitement as they stared into the central chamber; identical gleams of intense curiosity shining in their eyes.

The tension in the room built as they all stood around the machine – practically hugging it, and, in Barry and Lup’s case, each other. 

Until the machine did... something. The glow coming from the machine changed somehow, and Lup and Barry looked about ready to vibrate out of their lab coats.

The glow changed again to a dimmer, wavering light that almost looked like it was playing with the shadows in the room. The machine made a definitive beeping noise that Merle absolutely could not interpret.

He figured it must be good, though, because suddenly the most blinding things in the room were the smiles of the two scientists in front of him. Barry and Lup were positively beaming at the Science Machine, which had decided to stop trying to shed all of its loose parts and make a bid for freedom. 

Merle let his hands drop from the previously endangered areas of panelling, and was about to make a grumbling comment about not see what was so damn exciting about some light show…

But Lup and Barry had untangled somewhat and turned their blinding smiles and exhilarated expressions to each other, eyes shining and skin lit strangely by the gentle dancing light playing across the room. They looked as lost in each other as they had sounded earlier when they were doing their weird mind-reading bullshit; they were intense and completely on the same wavelength.

Huh.

Merle wondered how much time it would take in a lab with someone before he could speak and move like one person, before he could forget about anyone else in the room, before he could look at someone with a joy so palpable that it filled the room like music.

“What are you smiling about, old man?” 

Lup had apparently finished gazing into Barry’s eyes like he held the secrets to the planar system, and said keeper of planar secrets was now doing important looking things to the machine and writing stuff down. Regular science stuff, Merle assumed.

Merle tried to give off an enigmatic aura, possibly with limited success judging by Lup’s raised eyebrow. “Oh nothing, nothing. Just, Taako’s plant is alive again.”

And it was. Alive, and full of infinite potential for growth and change.

(At least, until Taako poured some kinda science bullshit on it instead of water – again.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was a lot of fun to write, because I love Merle and also had to make up magical science words.
> 
> Let me know what you thought of our favorite dwarf!


	4. Lucretia

It was late.

Possibly so late that it would soon count as early, but for now the porthole in the side of the ship only showed the light of this planet's close, enormous moon.

This was the time Lucretia preferred to work. She liked the quiet, liked filling it only with her steady breathing and the scratch of pens across smooth pages; filling their blank potential with worlds sprung out of ink while everything else slept.

The sound of the pen nibs across paper helped her think, too. After so many years, that gentle _scritch_ was the background noise to all her thoughts, whether she was writing or not.

It was comforting, and her dual pens working in harmony gave it an almost rhythmic quality.

Lucretia felt a deep satisfaction at being able to record this world properly. She had finally wrangled Taako, Lup, Barry and Merle into fully recounting their recent exploits – which was no small feat, and had required much cornering, convincing, and occasionally standing in the doorway of where they wanted to go until they agreed.

Merle usually wasn't too hard to convince, unless he felt like being difficult that day, and she'd have to decide if it was worth pushing.

The real challenge came once he was telling the story. She had to work to keep him on track, had to _manage_ him if she wanted to pull out the main story thread in amongst dozens of digressions – most of which were unrelated, but some of which would prove crucial half an hour later.

She had gotten better at being able to tell the difference between the relevant and irrelevant footnotes in Merle's tales; but it was made all the more challenging by the fact that he thought all of them were relevant. Or possibly he didn't have a great concept of relevance. One of the two.

Still, wrangling Merle's ramblings into a coherent story was a use of Lucretia's more serious skills that she actually appreciated the chance to use.

Not only did she enjoy Merle's company and unique perspective, she also got to practice tactics she had learned when doing her hard investigative stories. Especially in regards to sources who were more... unwilling to share information than most.

Merle didn't mean to be an unwilling source, she knew. In fact, his problem was largely that he was _too_ keen to talk, but that most of his talking was not very focused on the task at hand. Still, it reminded her of patiently tracking down and sifting through the disorganised information given by cagey interviewees until she found the thread, the hidden story – and then she _tugged_.

Interviewing Taako was a different plate of pixies entirely. Nothing about Taako was ever one hundred percent hassle free.

She had to wait until he deigned to come and see her on his own terms, but once he did it wasn't too hard. Not that she'd tell him that, he might decide to be more difficult on principle.

Taako liked to talk about himself, throwing out the most important details about the world or what they'd been doing in a carefully offhand way, like he had barely noticed the central facts.

The real kicker was getting him to talk about planets where it went _wrong_.

If it went bad enough, he might even refuse to talk to her at all.

Once, Lup had brought her to Taako's room, and they'd all sat on his messy bed and talked quietly about it all. She thought long and hard about what parts of that conversation she ought to write down after that; her dedication to the unfettered truth tempered over time by the family whose trust and privacy was more important to her.

Once, she had brought herself to Taako's room, when there was no Lup to take her, and they had sat on his messy floor and said nothing at all. She wrote down only the bare facts of that event. History did not need to know the way Taako cried silently for hours, until he was hollowed out and his eyes left empty.

She couldn’t say without guilt that the end of the world had been good for the seven of them. But it had.

They had all come out of their shells and grown as people in small but profound ways, she could feel it in herself and, while the changes took place over decades, she could see it clearly in her records of the others.

Perhaps no one had changed as obviously as Barry, and that may have been more due to him having the chance for him to be _comfortable_ with this crew than he had managed to be back home. Still, that chance at familiarity had only come with the end of the world, so it still counted.

Barry had become part of this family, and now he spoke his mind with less hesitance, took up space, laughed louder, and just let himself _be_. He’d been encouraged in this, in different ways, by the rest of the crew. 

She knew this, because she’d seen it for herself. 

Most of the time, no one on the Starblaster could manage a consistent sleeping schedule – or any schedule really. They’d become fairly adaptable over the years, as unexpected situations tended to arrive at whatever times suited them, regardless of whether you went to bed only an hour ago. Sleep was caught when it could be.

Lucretia and Barry, however, had remained chronic night owls despite it all. So it made sense that, over the years, they had run into each other on many occasions in the lounge or the kitchen; usually trying to either wind down or get caffeinated. Sometimes both, with mixed results.

Naturally, they’d had many late night conversations like this. Sometimes it was an over-caffeinated, rapid-fire sharing of ideas; sometimes deep, spiralling philosophical discussions of the sort only possible at four in the morning; and sometimes even very respectful arguments. Always topics so engrossing that they easily forgot to sleep at all.

And in these times, she had seen him change – or perhaps, she had seen him become more of himself.

Working, often literally, alongside Lup and Taako (the Starblaster’s lab was not that big) had probably helped most of all. Lucretia wondered if it was even possible for someone to stay shy and reserved while spending years with the twins. Perhaps, if they had walled him out of their vibrant interactions, kept him on the outside with their forceful personalities… 

But Lup was far too kind to do that to a good person, which Barry so obviously was. And Taako, despite the image he had tried to project back then, had _liked_ Barry from the start. In the early days, when Barry’s wit and sarcastic comments were rarer and quieter, Taako had looked delighted to have his remarks retaliated against by his nerdy crewmate who didn’t even look up from whatever he was doing to throw a quip back at the bored wizard.

They had all learned that insults and respect were not mutually exclusive to Taako, and there was a marked difference between the comments he made to them, and the comments he made to outsiders. 

It would have been impossible for Lucretia to not know how deeply Taako cared for them all, even in the earlier years. She could read between her own lines of writing; see how affected he was when he was sitting on the other side of her desk, staring out the porthole, and telling her about someone getting hurt. 

She’d never called him on it. At first, because she didn’t think he’d take it very well; and now, because she didn’t need to (and he probably still wouldn’t take it very well). It also felt almost like a breach of trust, like she would be abusing her role as journal-keeper, breaking the trust they put in her when they sat in her comfortable chair and gave her their stories to be kept safe in leather-bound journals.

She didn't tend to bring people in together to talk recount their adventures. Pretty much every combination only resulted in quick and total derailment – and sometimes broken furniture. Magnus had fixed that after, though. Well, he tried. 

The only exception to this was Lup and Barry. 

She and Barry had talked about a hundred personal topics in their irregularly unscheduled Night Owl Meetings, and he was a far cry from the shy scientist she’d met on orientation day. But something about the ‘official’ nature of coming to see Lucretia and knowing she would be writing down what he said tripped him up, left him stuttering and struggling for the words he wanted.

(This had been even worse those couple of times when he had sat across from her, doing his level best to sink right through the chair, explaining how he had blown up the lab this time.)

A couple of cycles ago, he and Lup had stumbled into her room early in the morning, seconds after knocking politely, to tell her about their latest and biggest successful experiment with the Light. Fortunately, she had been awake and writing anyway.

Barry’s enthusiasm had carried him a little way into their excited recount, before abandoning him all together and leaving him stranded out in the middle of a sentence. Lup jumped in without hesitation, carrying on smoothly to explain what they had discovered and why it was important.

Lup had spoken until Barry found his voice again, and then they spoke in a way that wove their voices together, telling a single story for Lucretia to dutifully copy down. When Barry couldn’t find the right word, Lup would help out – except when she didn’t.

_“And then we, uh, calibrated, uh, the– we calibrated the, uh…”_

_“Vibrator.”_

_“Calibrated the vibrator to resist the magnetic pull– wait, no–”_

Lucretia could remember very nearly writing that exact sentence down just after Barry said it, such was the sincerity with which Lup had supplied the missing word. Well, she had supplied _a_ missing word, and had done it in the exact same tone that she’d used to supply the _correct_ missing word at least a dozen times previously.

Despite some level of antics, which was almost to be expected from her family (and especially from Lup), things went well – better than when Barry was on his own, uncomfortable despite his indisputable expertise in his field. With Lup in the room, the atmosphere had stayed relaxed and warm. 

Lucretia almost suspected Lup of timing her ‘disruptions’ to keep it that way. 

And so the next time Lucretia had needed Barry to recount an adventure, she had gone to the lab and asked if he and Lup had time today, and they’d come in together to tell her about how Merle had nearly been eaten by a large and unexpectedly carnivorous plant.

In the more than four decades that they had been together, the crew had worked together in groups of every combination possible for various explorations and missions. Even so, Lup and Barry seemed to end up on the same adventures more often than not these days.

This had made it much easier for Lucretia to manage a fairly seamless transition to interviewing them together, not that they needed much management from her. Missions that they weren’t together for still seemed to end with both Lup and Barry sitting across from her, sharing their adventures and their laughter; filling the room as she filled the pages. 

She wondered if her careful strokes of ink captured the way they flowed around each other, a warmth and a melody at the same time – working together in much the same way as she could paint a canvas with both hands working separately yet still creating a unified piece.

Barry always brought her coffee, too, because he was polite like that.

Thoughts of caffeine roused Lucretia from her deep and winding thoughts, and she saw the first glowing suggestions of sunrise patterning the night sky.

She would quite like to stay up for that. Nostalgia could be a dangerous thing for the people on board this ship, but the double sunrises here reminded her of home, reminded her of thousand of sunrises seen from a different desk, writing different stories. Regret never managed to sink into her skin very far, though, not when she got to write new stories about the kinds of worlds she could never have dreamed of. Not when she got to write stories about her _family_.

A quiet smile on her face, she stood up and flexed her stiff hands a little before grabbing her favourite mug from the shelf behind her, where it lived out of danger of spilling onto her notebooks. Its glaze was still shiny, and it was painted to look like the deep purple night sky of the planet it had been bought from several cycles ago. Barry had presented it to her without ceremony the night before (or technically the morning of) Candlenights that year by simply handing it to her, full of coffee, during one of their Night Owl Meetings.

She thinks fondly of that planet and its brilliant hues as she opens her door to see light spilling out of the kitchen.

Lucretia treads softly through the living area until she has a view into the kitchen, where she can see Lup and Barry hovering, facing mostly away from her and leaning over something. They are whispering and giggling quietly together, doing something to the… coffee machine, judging by where they are.

She can see Lup’s wand is out, and some sparks have started jumping out from where the machine is hidden by their bodies. Barry sounds like he is attempting to muffle his laughter behind his hand, and when they pause to look at each other, the halves of their faces now visible are a perfect blend of joy and mischief.

Lucretia smiles and retreats quietly back to her room. She doesn’t need a coffee tonight.

(But she might need to carefully examine the next one Barry brings her.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I absolutely loved writing this chapter, loved getting inside Lucretia's head and imagining her relationships with the others.
> 
> Also, my deepest apologies, but I am in my final semester and don't know when I'll get the next chapter out. I'm sure the writing muse will overtake my best efforts to stay on task soon.


End file.
